Things are beginning to look grim at my job recently. Not that I fear I’ll lose it, but it seems I’m now the lead programmer of a non-evolving product. In the last three months my team has been downsized from 4 to 1, which means I no longer have a help-desk person. I realize the job market is slim right now, so I’ll take what I can get, but I don’t plan on working a help desk for the rest of my life, even if I am drawing a programmer’s salary. (Actually I’ve had quite a bit of time to read and post here, as some of you may have noticed, which has been nice. I don’t, however, want this privilege forever).

I have really great skills in Delphi (not just drag and dropping buttons, but true OO stuff), but I’m beginning to feel the pinch. Unfortunately I’ve not been spending a great deal of time learning new things, and while I don’t want to jump ship with from a great product, it is clear that M$ is pushing windows development toward .NET. I know Borland has its own .NET product in the works (which most likely will be fantastic), but since I’m on a project that has no reason to move to a new compiler, much less a whole new framework, it will be difficult for me to learn any new skills here in the workplace. We have a few other tasks with which I can get involved, but they all amount to Oracle database development, which sounds awful to me.

My question is: where do I go from here? I don’t want to get stuck working in a language that will be dead in a few years, yet the job market isn’t exactly bursting at the seams right now, especially for Delphi programmers. I’m sure that I could pick up C# in less than a week (actually I know I can since I’ve already read a book through on it), but when I was looking for a job last time people didn’t care if I could program or had read a book; all they were interested in was if I had experience in C#, C++, etc. I do have five years part-time experience in C and have aided a professor in teaching C++ at my old University, but this wasn’t enough for most employers last time I was job hunting: they wanted to see full-time work experience in C++.

I suppose I need to start learning some new technologies on my own, but what and how? And even if I’m able to pick up new skills, how can make new prospective employers take them seriously if I don’t have work experience? Any insights out there into how I can make sure I can stay marketable and sane would sure be appreciated. My biggest fear is that I’ll soon be joining the unemployed when the client decides not to fund my project any more now that it’s “finished”